Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Syria. Who’s next? Possibly it was supposed to be Russia, but Donald Trump seems to have put a stop to those ambitions. Itching for his place in the history books, Keir Starmer clearly can’t wait to commit our men and women in the armed forces to the ground in Ukraine. If he goes in and picks a fight with Putin, without American support, it will be a military disaster.
The phrase ‘regime change’ as the aim of recent military campaigns has been much on the lips of politicians on both sides of the Atlantic. While the motives for the First Gulf War may be questioned, at least we stopped short of toppling Sadam Hussein. Having decimated his Republican Guard, who turned out not to be as elite as he claimed, we stopped on the road to Basra and left the country to rebuild.
That all changed in the wake of 9/11 for which proof of Iraqi involvement has never been provided and which was prosecuted on the fake claim that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. None were ever found. We destroyed the infrastructure of the country, killing millions of innocent people in the process, and toppled ‘the dictator’ Sadam Hussein. The country descended into chaos as religious factions settled old scores and it has never fully recovered. How many must have prayed for a return to the old days of dictatorship before the allied bombs poured down on them from sea and sky.
Next, another ‘evil dictator’ Colonel Muammar Gaddafi had to be made an example of. For certain, he was a deluded showman, probably not the best person to cross and who constantly poked fun at the west. He probably did fund the occasional terrorist (the link to the Lockerbie air disaster remains controversial) but witness how many terrorists we have in our midst now and where their loyalty lies. Vast areas of Tripoli were destroyed, Gadaffi was toppled and another country descended into chaos as religious factions settled, and continue to settle, old scores.
Afghanistan, badly in need of ‘regime change’ was an ongoing campaign while Libya fell. We fought the Taliban for two decades, got the upper hand, installed our own kind of corrupt and ruthless leadership and…now the Taliban are back in charge imposing the most oppressive Islamic regime in the world. Clearly our efforts at teaching them the importance of intersectional politics and social justice were to no avail. Women can no longer study even nursing, but there is barely an outcry from any of the countries that made this possible.
A pattern was beginning to develop, but the UK-US axis continued its work of being the global policemen; not so much a case of ‘good cop–bad cop’ but ‘big cop – little cop’. Attention focused most recently on Syria which has turned out to be a resounding success for the very Islamic extremists President Assad was trying to suppress. In addition to the destruction of the country we now have the ascendancy of an Israeli backed set of uneducated Islamic thugs, who are slaughtering Christians and any Muslims they consider insufficiently Muslim. Barely a word is uttered from the UK government and further aid will be sent to the new regime from the EU.
It seems that ‘admitting we may have made a mistake’ is not in the lexicon of our lords and masters. For that reason, we will probably continue making these mistakes for decades to come until we push one or other nuclear superpower (China leads the way at the moment) and we get a taste of our own medicine.
Donald Trump is far from perfect both as a person and as a politician. But he held a remarkable record, in his first term in office, of not picking a fight with anyone. He threatened plenty, but that is part of his tactics. It seems that he may, however daft his utterance about purchasing Gaza, bring an end to the dreadful slaughter of innocent people there. Also, where his predecessor, the UK and most of the EU could only add fuel to the firepower of Ukraine, he may be on the brink of stopping that one too.
At least he will have tried which is more than the British government, NATO and the EU have done. And when it comes to ‘regime change’, doesn’t that look like a shopping list?
Roger Watson is a retired academic nurse who lives in the UK.
He is currently engaged in a range of professional consultancies in the UK, Europe and China. He writes regularly for several outlets including The Daily Sceptic, The European Conservative, Country Squire Magazine and The New Conservative.
